


Rub You Into My Wounds

by redrobinfection (ChristmasRivers)



Series: JayTim Week 2016 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, bruised and battered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:25:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChristmasRivers/pseuds/redrobinfection
Summary: "...like a salve."
Tim hits some bad luck on patrol, gets roughed up, and Jason steps in to help him out. A week later Tim returns the favor.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Second of two prompt fills originally intended for the fifth day - "Bruised and Battered" - of the tumblr JayTim Week 2016 (August 1-7).

It was getting late. It had been quiet enough on his turf that night that Jason was thinking about turning in early, but just as he was heading in a call came over the comm.

Red Robin had engaged a group of eight or so thugs only a few blocks over from his current position. Jason was pretty sure Tim had it covered, but for a lack of anything better to do he decided he’d swing over there anyway, if only to lend a hand zip-tying afterwards and to have a chat with Tim to see how his night had gone.

Jason could see the altercation a block out. Tim’s estimate over the comm had been so, _so_ wrong. Jason counted at least seven guys down, four currently fighting with Red Robin, and another three popped out of the shadows to throw themselves into the fray as he watched. Red Robin seemed to be handling it well enough, but even from a distance Jason could tell from the way Red was moving that he’d taken some heavy hits.

One of the three that had just joined in seemed to find some sense at the very last moment, deciding to peace out before he could get his ass handed to him, and retreated in Jason’s direction, as luck would have it. Jason intercepted the thug several hundred yards from the scene and by the time he had pistol whipped the poor idiot and zip-tied him to the closest fire escape, the rest of the fighting had ended and Tim seemed to have already secured most of the downed thugs.

Jason arrived on-scene just as Tim was scaling the nearest wall, up and over onto the rooftops before Jason could even call out. _Well, that was fast,_ Jason thought, pulling out his grappler to follow. He paused when he spotted the the closest downed thug.

Jason’s eyes bulged behind his mask as he whirled on the spot. About half of the twelve or thirteen guys - heavily-muscled and well-equipped at that, professionals probably - were zipped or cuffed, but the rest… Some of the ties lay beside wrists, others were strewn nearby. One guy had one hand in a cuff and the other not. One poor soul had a zip tie lying on his unconscious, upturned face. _What the hell?_

Jason wondered if maybe Tim had seen him coming and left him half the group to secure, but that didn’t really seem like the kind of thing Tim would do - not something that any competent vigilante would do, for that matter. Jason called out to Red Robin over the comm, but got no response. Maybe Tim had been called away on a different frequency, but he certainly couldn’t have gone out of range just yet. Jason sighed and went to work securing the weakly stirring thugs. One way or another Jason would have to chase Tim down if he wanted to know what the deal was.

A minute and a half later Jason scaled the building and turned on the spot, sweeping the skyline for signs of Red Robin, flipping through comm channels as he did so. Jason blinked in shock half a second later when he spotted Red Robin at four o'clock only a few roofs over. Had Tim waited for him?

Jason crossed the rooftops quickly, calling out to Tim when he landed a few yards behind him.

“Hey, Red, you sure ran off in a hurry. What’s going on?”

Tim treaded slowly toward the edge of the roof, holding one hand to the side of his head as if fiddling with his earpiece communicator, but he didn’t turn to acknowledge Jason’s presence.

“Hey! Hey, Red! Earth to Red Robin!”

That was when Tim collapsed.

—

_Ughhhhh._

Tim grimaced at the spikes of intense pain that shot through the dull ache in his head as he moved in an attempt to sit up. He squinted into the gloom, straining to make out his surroundings through the blurriness that fogged his sight.

“Hey,” a voice spoke from his left. Tim’s vision cleared enough for him to notice Jason approach from the side, phone in one hand and a small flashlight in the other.

“Good. You’re awake. I was about two minutes away from calling in B or stuffing you into civvies and dragging your ass to the nearest hospital no matter what kind of questions it would raise later,” Jason said, kneeling down to peer into Tim’s face.

Tim stared blankly at the other man for a few hazy seconds before his memory began the mad scramble to catch up. He had been on patrol and then…

“How long was I out?” Tim still couldn’t remember much, but he could feel the knowledge hovering at the edge consciousness. Beneath the dull ache his head felt fuzzy and tight, like it was stuffed full of cotton or clouds or…

“Nearly an hour,” Jason replied, flashing the light into Tim’s eyes mercilessly, ignoring his pained flinches. “And you’re definitely concussed, but your vitals were strong and your reactions have been ok, so I didn’t want to jump the gun on taking you in.” Even if Jason had called B, they still would have had to take Tim to a hospital; there just wasn’t much B or Alfred - or even Leslie Thompkins - could do if they suspected a severe traumatic brain injury.

Tim nodded gingerly. Jason stood and stretched with a groan, working the tension from his shoulders. Tim looked around slowly, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings. “Where are we?”

“One of my lesser-used safe houses. It’s more or less a bolthole, it’s that small. But it’s a well-equipped bolthole, and on that note…” Jason wandered off deeper into the dim space, leaving Tim alone to take in his surroundings.

He lay on a long, well-worn couch, his legs covered by a single pilly blanket. He was still in his Red Robin suit, but Jason had removed his cape and cowl and they were nowhere in sight. Tim’s vision spun as he sat up just enough to peer into the gloom beyond the back of the couch. He fought down a wince at the pain that shot through his side at the movement.

Pain in his side… _the blows to my ribs!_ Tim’s eyes widened as the rest of the night flooded back to him.

He had been having a pretty quiet night on patrol and had eventually decided to head home early. The only thing he had wanted to do before officially calling it a night was to head over to Red Hood’s territory so he could ask him a few questions about a case they had worked on together a couple of weeks back - just a few quick questions he had wanted to clear up face-to-face while he had had the free time to track Hood down. So, of course, just as he was heading over to find Hood, he had run across a group of thugs roughing up what had seemed to be a rival faction.

Tim had thrown himself into the fray hoping that at least one side of the fight would take advantage of the interruption and flee, but instead they had seemed to take great offense to his interference, and wasted no time in focusing their combined energies on him instead.

To make matters worse, what had originally looked like an altercation between three or so guys on one side and four on the other had turned out to be more than twelve people combined after they all turned on the meddling vigilante. Oh, and they had been _well-trained_ , he couldn’t forget that.

Tim shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose with a grimace. A twelve-on-one fight with trained mercenaries. He sighed. _It’s always something, isn’t it?_

He winced again at the twinge of pain that ran through his side and the memory of the multiple blows he’d taken to it during that overwhelming onslaught.

“Hey. Your head still bothering you badly?”

Tim jumped and lowered his hand from this face. He was so out of it that Jason had walked around the couch and right up to his side without him even noticing. Tim shook his head as Jason knelt beside him, Jason’s worried expression darkening regardless.

“No, it’s actually starting to clear up now. I can remember the fight and everything after up until the point I passed out.” Tim huffed a laugh. “Sorry for ignoring your calls; I was a little out of it, you know?”

Jason narrowed his eyes at Tim’s ill-timed attempt at humor and studied him intensely. The searching look went on so long that Tim started to feel uncomfortable meeting the other man’s gaze, but eventually Jason seemed to come to some sort of conclusion, rose again with a sigh, and grabbed the first aid kit and cold packs he had brought over. “It hurt anywhere else?” Jason asked.

Tim used a hand on the back of the couch to pull himself up further, fighting down another wince as he did. He raised his eyebrows at Jason as he hovered closely, one hand held out to steady Tim should he fall over or pass out again. “I took some pretty hard hits to my ribs that are bothering me, and I’m sure I’m banged up elsewhere and can’t feel it yet, but I don’t think I’m bleeding anywhere,” he answered. He finally pulled himself fully upright, then swung his legs over the side of the couch gingerly.

Jason nodded. “No, not externally, at least.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his already messy hair. “Ok, let’s get you out of that suit, then, and see what we’ve got.”

Tim stood and Jason steadied him as he swayed dizzily. Together they picked their way through all of the various traps and zippers of his suit, and then, after a few minutes of creative wriggling and pained gasps, Tim finally managed to extricate himself with minimal aggravation to his wounds. He lowered himself back onto the couch slowly, closing his eyes at the pain as he leaned back into the seat. He heard a hiss and snapped his eyes open again to see Jason standing a step back, absentmindedly clutching Tim’s balled-up suit in his hands, and wincing as his gaze swept over Tim’s exposed body.

“Holy shit, Babybird. You look like you took a tumble in a dryer filled with rocks.”

Tim followed Jason’s wide-eyed gaze down and winced at the sight of various bruises rising up on his skin from ankles to neck. They looked worse than they felt at the moment, but now that the excitement and adrenaline were wearing off he was sure the rest of the pain would catch up to him soon. The great part about his kevlar-reinforced suit was that it would take the brunt of a hit and disperse it across a wider area, but the downside was that you still tended to bruise pretty badly.

The nastiest-looking of the bruises stretched across his ribs and torso. Jason reached out towards them and Tim gave a silent nod of permission for Jason to approach so he could feel at the splotches darkening across Tim’s chest. Jason watched Tim’s face carefully as he slid careful, calloused fingers along each of Tim’s ribs, noting the flinches and pained twitches Tim tried to tamp down as he prodded the more sensitive areas.

“Well, it doesn’t feel like any of your ribs are snapped outright…” Jason trailed off, biting his tongue between his teeth as he felt at the bruising across the rest of Tim’s torso. Tim frowned at the soreness, but thankfully there was no stabbing pain, tightness, or stiff bloating which could indicate there might be more serious bleeding underneath.

“And it doesn’t look like the rest of these have any internal bleeding underneath, _however,_ ” Jason continued, backing off again and reaching behind him to grab a bottle of water and a bottle of painkillers. “Your ribs are pretty badly bruised, probably hairline fractured in a couple spots, and the rest of you is so banged-up that I say you should probably take it easy for the next couple of days. Okay?”

Tim hated the idea, but Jason’s assessments sounded spot-on and his suggestions made sense, so he couldn’t disagree in good conscious. He took the bottle and swallowed the pills in silence.

“You can rest-up here tonight, and if you try to keep ice on most of…” Jason gestured to all of Tim, “ _…this_ , then you shouldn’t be hurting too bad come tomorrow.”

Tim groaned. He pulled the ice-packs up onto his chest and over onto the largest bruises on his leg, then laid back and turned over to curl up on his undamaged side, forehead pressed into the back of the couch. “Ok, _Nurse Jay_. Will do,” he grumbled. He closed his eyes, pressed his face further into the cushion to block out all traces of light, and concentrated on trying to will away his pounding headache.

“Hey, hey, hey, no falling asleep yet, grumpy-ass,” Jason laughed, tugging on Tim’s shoulder and leaning over him so he could peer into Tim’s face. “Or did you forget that your brain is as bruised as the rest of you?” Tim turned his head far enough to blink up blearily at the smirking man, then gave a drawn out groan as Jason started to tug him upright again.

“I’d let you stay in my bed, but this place is so small that this _is_ the bed, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the only chair too,” Jason quipped, offering another ice-pack that Tim ignored morosely. “So move on over a bit; I’m going to wiggle in behind you and wake you up every hour so you don’t die in your sleep.”

Tim shot him a dirty look, but scooted down the couch just enough to allow Jason room to slide in behind him. Jason slid one leg in-between Tim and the back of the couch, and let his other leg hang over the side, leaving Tim seated comfortably between his legs.

Tim tensed for a moment at the feeling of entrapment when Jason reached an arm across him to pull the blanket up over their legs, but relaxed as Jason eased him back against his chest. They started out pressed back-to-chest, but as Jason shifted around, first to shove away the first aid kit, then to dim the side-table lamp, and then to pull out a book, Tim let himself slide down until his head was more or less resting in Jason’s lap, his body securely wedged between Jason’s warm legs.

He flinched slightly when Jason unexpectedly moved the last ice-pack to cover one side of his face - apparently to cover some nasty bruises on his cheek and temple he hadn’t started to feel yet; bruises that had probably come from the same blows that had also bruised the inside his head - but within minutes the cooling numbness of the packs, the soothing warmth of Jason around him, and the heavy feeling in his chest and limbs that pulled him down into the plush cushions of the well-worn couch lulled him into sleep. He let his eyes sink closed listening to Jason hum quietly as he turned another page in his book.

The last thing Tim was conscious of before he drifted off that first time was the feeling of Jason’s fingers gently sifting through his hair.

—

A little over a week later, Tim had finally gotten the all clear from Leslie to go back on patrol. His concussion had been moderate and Leslie had been less than pleased that Jason hadn’t brought Tim to her right away, regardless of the time-of-day or situation, but she had seemed content enough with how Jason had handled it, in any case. Tim had been grounded entirely from his patrols and caseload - Bruce had even made him take days off from Wayne Enterprises work - but after a few days of rest and observation, it looked like he was good to go again.

His bruised limbs and sore ribs were another story. Leslie confirmed Jason’s tentative diagnosis of hairline fractures in his ribs and recommended that he go easy on them whenever possible. The rest of his bruises were slowly fading, but much of the soreness and tenderness remained, not that a little residual soreness would keep Red Robin indoors when there were streets to prowl.

It was only Tim’s second night back when some chatter came over the comms about something big going down at the docks. Tim was on the other side of town, and just about finished with his patrol, when an urgent beeping in his earpiece prompted him to switch to their emergency frequency.

It was Oracle. “Red Robin, I need you at the docks. _NOW._ ”

On his way over Tim learned that Jason had been following a lead that had turned out to be related to a case Batman and Robin were investigating down in the warehouse district. The three of them had moved in on the info, which had led them straight into a well-laid trap, and then, apparently, things had turned nasty fast.

B and R had made it out relatively unscathed and pursued their target from the scene, but Red Hood had reportedly taken the brunt of the beating and Oracle had recently lost contact. Worried that Hood might be in over his head, Oracle was sending Red Robin in to back him up or extract him, if necessary.

On a positive note, by the time Tim made it to the scene, the fighting had ended and he could clearly see Hood limping away from a gaggle of hog-tied criminals.

On a not-so-positive note, as soon as Hood stepped under the lamp of the closest streetlight, Tim could see the evidence on his body of just how rough that fighting had been.

Hood was favoring his left side heavily. There were scrapes, scratches, and mars in the kevlar panels of his armor. One side of his leather jacket looked like a wildcat had taken its claws to it. The helmet he held under one arm was scratched down to the bare metal and was dented so much on one side that it couldn’t have been wearable anymore. Instead, Jason’s identity was concealed by his strikingly red domino, but beside it there was also the sheen of strikingly fresh blood streaking down one side of his face. Familiar words sprung to Tim’s mind as he took in the damage.

“…Holy fuck, Hood. You look like you took a tumble in a dryer filled with rocks. And a few angry cats.”

“Fuck you,” Hood shot back, grimacing, but with a little huff of a laugh for the recycled sass. Tim moved in to help but waited for the silent nod of approval from Hood before he wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled Hood’s arm over his shoulder to steady him as he swayed on the spot.

“What happened?” Tim asked.

Hood - Jason - explained as they made their way back to Tim’s bike, and then in snatches as they rode back to Tim’s apartment - further away than Jason’s, but larger and better stocked, in Tim’s opinion - of how Jason had arrived at the scene on his bike only to find that the dynamic duo had already gone in without him and that the whole place was in utter chaos.

Within seconds of his arrival, some idiot swung a crane - complete with heavy payload and an obnoxiously large boom - over the scene in a wild attempt to hit one of the vigilantes and that had forced Jason to dump his bike while coming in at fifty miles per hour. Tim shook his head in chagrin as Jason recounted barely managing to jump clear of the sliding vehicle before he and the bike had skidded at roadway speeds into the warehouse complex, scraping across ragged concrete and patches of torn-up asphalt along the way. Well, that explained the scratches.

The rest of the fight after that hadn’t been much better. Rather quickly they’d figured out that the info they’d dug up on the meeting had been planted with the specific intent to lure out as many vigilante “problems” as possible so they could be eliminated. The sheer number of thugs and hired guns they’d had to go up against had made the trap part of that pretty clear pretty quickly.

He and Batman had managed to intercept most of the thugs, giving Robin a chance to clear a way out, but in the end even the three of them couldn’t hold out against such numbers. Jason had taken some heavy hits to his left side and leg. Robin had been limping, too, after an explosion had thrown both he and Hood halfway across the yard. Batman had taken at least one bullet in one of his thicker armor-plates, and Jason had taken at least two. Some idiot with a baseball bat had gone after Robin near the end and Jason had been irate and stupid enough at the sight of it to intentionally jump between them; he had taken a swing right to the helmet before he ripped the dented piece of scrap off and bashed the bastard over the head with it. 

The bosses they had been after had torn out of there not long after that. Batman and Robin had run off right on their tail, leaving Jason to mop up the rest, much to his chagrin and annoyance.

Guiding Jason into his apartment and starting a more detailed assessment, Tim had to admit the man looked every inch as beat up as he had described. Suit and jacket shredded, cuts to his face, hunching over one side, limping and probably bruised over most of his body under the battered suit; Jason looked utterly spent and Tim couldn’t blame him.

Pulling off Jason’s suit piece by piece a minute later, Tim felt grateful for the sturdy kevlar clothing. As predicted Jason’s arms and torso were a spectacular mass of bruises - especially the side on which Jason had mentioned taking those heavy hits - but gentle prods to Jason’s ribs gave Tim hope that at least one of them had managed to make it through the week without rib fractures.

Jason’s lack of headache and quick responses to stimuli soothed Tim’s fears that he might have sustained a head injury, something entirely possible even with a helmet to absorb most of the blow from that bat.

What surprised Tim were the little scratches Jason had all over - probably from dirt and microscopic gravel that had snuck in around collars and though the seams to rub against Jason’s skin from _inside_ the suit - and the friction burns that ran up and down one side of his body. It must have be a long skid indeed to give Jason burns _inside_ kevlar. Jason winced tiredly at the way the fabric scraped across tender skin as they pulled it off.

The taller man didn’t even bother pulling on fresh clothes or cleaning up much beyond wiping a washcloth across his face - Tim had to bat it away so he could disinfect and butterfly shut the shallow laceration that had sheeted blood down the side of Jason’s face earlier - before he trudging off to Tim’s bedroom and falling into bed without preamble. Tim took a few more minutes to clean up Jason’s clothes, strip out of his own suit, and lock up before heading to bed himself.

Washing up quickly - no point to showering if Jason was sleeping in his bed having not - Tim hovered in the doorway of his bathroom, studying the tangle of limbs on his bed that constituted his friend, his partner, his _lover_. Jason moaned from underneath an arm thrown across his face.

“You comin’ or you just gonna keep standin’ there watchin’ like a creeper, Babybird?”

Tim huffed a gentle laugh. “I was just thinking about what a pair we make right now; beat-up and bruised in every color of the rainbow.” He let a wry smirk lighten his expression.

“And you know, I’m not sure I want to get into bed with all those arms and legs you like to throw around in the middle of the night. I’m still pretty bruised up myself,” he teased softly.

Jason grumbled unintelligibly in response, bringing both hands up to scrub at his face. The only words Tim caught were something along the lines of “too quiet” and “speak up”. So he did.

“ **I’M. BRUISED.** YOU. KICK. AT. NIGHT. YOU. ASS.” Tim repeated loudly, amused more than annoyed by Jason’s put-upon grumpiness.

Jason snorted softly and dropped his hands to shoot Tim a cracked grin and a mischievous look.

“Hey, _Bruised_ , I’m Battered,” Jason bantered, winking cheesily. “Care to join me in bed so we can be ‘Bruised and Battered’ together?”

Tim groaned, but couldn’t hold back a smile that was mirrored in the affectionate one Jason wore as he watched Tim suffer through his poor attempts at humor. Jason stretched out his arms to beckon Tim into them. Tim lowered himself onto the bed gingerly, then wriggled in close.

_“Ouch.”_

_“Dammit.”_

_“Uhhhh, if you…move that leg…”_

_“Wait, Tim, stop, STOP!”_

It took a few minutes of cursing, groans and creative maneuvering before they finally found a position that was comfortable for both of them. Jason was out like a light not long after that. The last thing Tim was aware of before he followed was of Jason's body loosening and melting into his warmth just as his loosened and melted into Jason’s. His last thought before surrendering to that warmth was of how funny, and beautiful, it was how often the two of them managed to forget the aches and pains of their wounds simply through the salve of laying in each other’s arms. **  
**

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed this prompt so much, I ended up writing two fills for it! This was the serious, but heartwarming fill. Read the silly, lighthearted fill [here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7691380)
> 
> My DCU tumblr sideblog is [redrobinfection](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/) Link for this work on tumblr: [here.](http://redrobinfection.tumblr.com/post/150567136616/rub-you-into-my-wounds) Thanks for reading!


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